The work–family interface in Korea: can family life enrich work life?

Using data obtained from 363 Korean civil servants, we examine the mechanism of family-to-work enrichment. Although individualistic Western work–family literature predicts that resources from the family role, both instrumental and affective, will improve the work role by mitigating the negative job stress–job satisfaction relationship, data from collectivistic Korean society show an unexpected opposite effect – an accentuating, not a mitigating moderating effect. Family resources – especially affective resources – may function as an additional work stressor rather than enrich the work role under collectivists' weak identity separation between work and family roles. This study thus reveals the cultural biases in the extant Western work–family literature by showing that the cultural variance in role identity separation/integration may underlie the mechanism of family-to-work enrichment.     

Gaps between managers' and employees' perceptions of work–life balance

Research on work–life balance (WLB) practices has increased in recent years. Academics affirm that the implementation of WLB practices helps to achieve better organizational results and improve employee outcomes such as higher satisfaction and commitment, and reduce turnover intentions. However, some authors have argued that there are differences between the availability of WLB practices in companies and employees' perceptions of access to such practices. The literature on the differences in perceptions between managers and employees in relation to WLB and its effects is sparse. Using two samples of 229 managers and 511 employees from the same firms, we in this paper contribute to our knowledge of the existence of the perception gaps between managers and employees and their influence on the take-up of WLB. Implications for academics and practitioners are discussed.     

Work–family enrichment and satisfaction: the mediating role of self-efficacy and work–life balance

Although the direct effects of work–family enrichment on satisfaction are well-documented, previous theoretical predictions and empirical findings of the relationship have been inconsistent. Drawing on social cognitive theory, the current research examined how work–family enrichment contributes to job and family satisfaction by exploring the mediating mechanisms of self-efficacy and work–life balance. This study also empirically validated a new self-efficacy measure using the work–life interface nomological network. A heterogeneous sample of Australian employees (N = 234) from four different organisations responded to two waves of data collection separated by a 12-month interval. Using structural equation modelling, the results of the statistical analysis provided preliminary support for the hypothesised chain mediation model and the newly developed five-item self-efficacy to regulate work and life scale. Specifically, work-to-family enrichment and family-to-work enrichment were positively related to self-efficacy, which in turn had a positive effect on work–life balance. Similarly, work–life balance had a positive impact on job and family satisfaction. Evidence of these relationships over time was demonstrated, thereby emphasising the importance of person–cognitive resources (e.g. self-efficacy) in influencing life outcomes. Validation of the self-efficacy scale also demonstrated robust psychometric properties and criterion validity. Implications of these results were subsequently discussed.     

How do top executives handle their work and family life? A taxonomy of top executives' work–family balance

Aiming to increase understanding of work–family balance at the executive level and to derive implications for human resource management, this study analyses patterns of the way in which different top executives handle the interface between work and family domains. Drawing on role theory, research on work–family linkages and a qualitative study with 42 top executives, the authors identify eight constructs that constitute top executives' work–family balance. By applying cluster analysis to dyadic data from 220 top executives and their life partners, they detect five top executive work–family balance types, according to the interplay of the top executives' satisfaction and functioning at work and at home, as well as the conflicts between the two life domains. The balance types imply significant variance in highly relevant outcomes, such as job performance and job attitudes.     

Organizational culture and work–life integration: A barrier to employees’ respite?

Abstract

The management of work–life boundaries is portrayed in the literature as being a matter of individual choice. Accordingly, organizational influence has been underestimated. The first objective of this article is therefore to determine whether an organizational culture of integration (e.g. expectations about taking work home) can influence individuals’ ability to act on their personal preference for segmentation. The second objective is to determine whether a mismatch between culture and personal preferences can influence the emotional state of employees and, if so, in what way. A study of 243 employees showed that the perception of an organizational culture of integration reduced the effect of preference for segmentation on employees’ ability to detach themselves from work during rest periods. Further, a path analysis highlighted a moderated mediation, indicating that preference for segmentation was associated with reduced emotional exhaustion in employees by promoting a high level of psychological detachment, and this reduction was even stronger among those who perceived a weak culture of integration in their organization. This study proposes that jointly with individual preference for segmentation or integration, the norms and expectations of an organization have considerable influence on employees’ ability to detach and recover during non-work time.     

Impact of individual coping strategies and organisational work–life balance programmes on Australian employee well-being

This paper examines several individual coping strategies and employees' perception of organisational provision of work–life balance (WLB) programmes with a sample of 700 Australian employees. The combined effects of individual coping strategies and organisational provision of WLB programmes on employee affective well-being are examined, using structural equation modelling. Results indicate that individuals with positive attitudes and life coping strategies were more capable of achieving overall well-being. Both monetary- and non-monetary-based organisational WLB provision had no direct association with employee well-being, but had indirect effects via individual coping strategies to help employees achieve better well-being. Employee well-being was found to have a stronger association with individual effort than organisational deliberation in providing WLB programmes. Theoretical and practical implications of these study outcomes are discussed.     

Family-friendly policies in the workplace and their effect on work–life conflicts in Hong Kong

As in many other big cities, employees in Hong Kong face competing demands from their work and family and are under a tremendous conflict between work and life. Recently, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has put a lot of effort into promoting family-friendly policies, but the availability and effectiveness of these policies are largely unknown. The social distribution of work–life conflicts across social status and the dimensions of stratification in Hong Kong have already been documented. This paper examines these issues by way of a telephone survey of over 1000 employees in Hong Kong. We argue that certain groups of workers are particularly vulnerable to work–life conflicts, and target interventions must be devised to address their needs. Moreover, we also suggest that a regulatory approach to implementing family-friendly policies must be undertaken once implementation on a voluntary basis has failed, owing to the low availability of family-friendly policies in the Hong Kong workplace. Lastly, we show the effectiveness of three measures – namely flexible work time, a five-day work week and career breaks – in reducing both work–life conflicts and their negative consequences. We argue that more rigorous randomized intervention must be undertaken to provide more conclusive evidence so as to convince employers to implement these policies in their enterprises.     

Effects of work–family and family–work conflicts on flexible work arrangements demand: a gender role perspective

In recent years, a growing number of firms have adopted flexible work arrangements (FWAs) to help managers balance their work–family demands. Based on a sample of 1336 married managers in Korea, we found that work–family conflict increased the FWAs demand more for female managers than for male managers. When facing work–family conflict, the absence of family-supportive supervision increased the demand for FWAs, particularly among female managers. No such effect was found for family–work conflict. In addition, having a female supervisor led to an increased demand for FWAs from company managers. These results suggest that firms should pay close attention to gender difference and supervisory roles in predicting the demand for FWAs to alleviate work–family conflicts.     

Employee work–life balance outcomes in Ireland: a multilevel investigation of supervisory support and perceived organizational support

This article examines how employee perceptions of supervisory and organizational support for work–life balance, in addition to the number of work–life balance programmes available, predict a number of work–life balance outcomes including role conflict, job satisfaction, family satisfaction and turnover intentions in a sample of large private and public sector organizations in Ireland. The attitudes of HR managers towards work–life balance programmes are also explored. To account for the nested structure of the data, analyses were conducted using hierarchical linear modelling. We found that perceptions of work–life supportiveness as measured at the HR manager and immediate supervisor levels affect employee uptake of work–life programmes, employee work–life balance outcomes and turnover intentions.     

Negative work–family/family–work spillover and demand for flexible work arrangements: the moderating roles of parenthood and gender

In recent years, companies have increasingly adopted flexible work arrangements (FWAs) to help company managers address negative work–family/family–work spillover (inter-role conflicts between work and family roles). Accordingly, we investigate the effects of parenthood and gender on the relationship between negative work–family/family–work spillover and demand for FWAs. Based on a sample of 1577 managers (967 females and 610 males) of South Korean companies, the results show that parenthood has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between negative work–family/family–work spillover and the demand for FWAs, regardless of gender. The present study highlights the importance of parenthood not only in addressing negative work–family/family–work spillover but also in expressing a demand for FWAs.     

Searching for a balance: work–family practices,work–team design,and organizational performance

The crucial impact of work–family issues on employee's well-being has been recognized and responded with a variety of research in field of organizational behavior. However, few studies examine the impact of how work–family practices affect productivity at firm-level. Following the research stream of strategic human resource management, we proposed that work–family may form the norm of reciprocity, which is a more sophisticated and more critical, internal social-structure component to enable organizational performance. We also examine the contingent effect, work–team structure – on the extent to which the work–family practices are appreciated by employees – and then create complementarities. We conduct a longitudinal study and utilize a data set of 204 Taiwanese public-traded firms to test our hypotheses. The results show that, contrary to our prediction, utilizing work–family practices does not have a significant positive impact on organizational productivity. However, the most important finding of this study is that there are synergies between work–family practices and work–team design on organizational productivity. Work–team design is an important situation in which the returns of work–family practices can be enhanced.     

Testing a new measure of work–life balance: a study of parent and non-parent employees from New Zealand

The present study extends the established theoretical lenses for understanding the work–family interface beyond conflict and enrichment, suggesting role balance as a theory for understanding how balance among roles can be beneficial for employees. The present study develops a measure of work–life balance and tests whether work–life balance is beneficial beyond conflict and enrichment for all employees. Two employee studies were conducted on (1) 609 parents and (2) 708 non-parents, and structural equation modeling confirmed that the balance dimension was distinct from other work–life dimensions and outcomes, and the analysis of multiple models showed that work–life balance plays a significant indirect mediation effect between conflict and enrichment toward outcomes. Overall, work–life balance was important and broadly identical for both samples with consistent effects toward job and life satisfaction, and psychological outcomes, with work–life conflict being detrimental, work–life enrichment beneficial and work–life balance providing additional benefits, especially toward life satisfaction. The findings provide greater generalizability and highlight the importance of balance for all employees, especially those typically excluded in the work–family literature such as single and childless employees.     

Living flexibly? How Europe's science researchers manage mobility,fixed-term employment and life outside work

This paper draws from interviews with mobile science researchers to explore experiences of mobility and fixed-term employment in the EU. The paper takes a socio-legal approach, aiming to understand the contribution of EU law and policy to the resource framework within which career decisions are made. The high incidence of fixed-term employment and the expectation of geographic mobility in science labour markets has made science researchers very ‘flexible’ employees and, arguably, model EU citizens. But how are these factors managed in the context of every-day life? Developing sound empirical evidence of how individuals experience mobility and fixed-term employment could lead to more sensitive and effective policy making. This is particularly pertinent as human resource issues in science research have become central to achieving the EU's overarching strategies for growth and jobs (the Lisbon Strategy and Europe 2020). A range of policies designed to increase the mobility of researchers and to manage the use of fixed-term contracts have been put in place. This paper draws on empirical evidence to inform our understandings of these developing areas of law and policy in the EU.     

Organizational expatriates and self-initiated expatriates: who adjusts better to work and life in Japan?

Expatriates are often presented in the cross-cultural adjustment literature as a homogeneous, broad population. However, recent research that makes a distinction between organizational expatriates (OEs), those who are dispatched by their home companies to international posts, and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), those who themselves make the decision to live and work abroad, has identified differences between the two groups. The present study compares the cross-cultural adjustment of these two groups of expatriates. Survey results of 179 expatriates in Japan show that SIEs are better adjusted to general aspects of their host country and interactions with host-country nationals than OEs. Suggestions for practice are provided.     

Work–life management tensions in multinational enterprises (MNEs)

Global work–life initiatives present unique challenges for HR departments in multinational enterprises (MNEs) because of the complexity of implementing policies that require sensitivity to local issues such as cultural traditions and legislation. A tension-centered approach to analyzing these complexities, not utilized in previous research on the topic, is applied here. Three generic sources of tensions are developed: strategic/policy versus operational considerations, centralization versus decentralization and contextual/institutional versus organizational demands. Earlier research yields four potential responses to tensions: opposition, spatial separation, temporal separation and synthesis, with a fifth option added for no recognition of tension. The framework is applied to global work–life initiatives using data from 27 qualitative interviews with regional and global HR managers employed by 13 MNEs. There is evidence supporting the prevalence of each of the three generic sources of and five responses to tension, and of overlap across categories and responses. For managers, the analysis provides useful insights for constructing global work–life initiatives that are effective and responsive to local conditions. For researchers, the tensions approach yields a relevant tool for analyzing global work–life initiatives. For both, the findings suggest it is important to guard against biases related to Western notions of progress.     

Relationships among three facets of family-supportive work environments,work–family conflict and job satisfaction: a research in Greece

The purpose of the present study is to extend the line of current enquiry related to family-supportive work environments (FSWEs), and their relationships to work–family conflict (WFC) and job satisfaction. Three facets of a FSWE are examined: family (non-) supportive culture, family-supportive management (FSM) and the model of ideal worker. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey from 612 employees. The results indicate that among the three facets of a FSWE, FSM appears to better predict both WFC and job satisfaction. Furthermore, WFC was negatively related to job satisfaction. An intriguing result is that the ideal worker model – manifested via long hours of work, visibility, availability and the dominance of organisation's needs over the family ones – was found to be positively related to job satisfaction, whilst it has no impact on WFC. Finally, the implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Do high performance work practices work in South Korea?

The distribution of so‐called high performance work practices (HPWPs) in South Korean manufacturing is mapped showing their relative scarcity. Contextual and institutional factors associated with the 1997–98 financial crisis are advanced to explain these findings. Nevertheless, anticipating that HPWPs are likely to improve performance, we tested several hypotheses. Employment security, teams, training, job enrichment and information sharing have a positive effect on performance; however there is no evidence of synergy. Most HPWP practices are partially mediated by worker attachment to their workplace. Government workplace reform policy, firms' business and labour utilisation strategy, and the presence of professional management contribute to performance.     

A PCA–DEA approach to measure the quality of life in Estonian counties

This paper investigates the application of a PCA–DEA model to assess the quality of life (QOL) scores in Estonian counties and analyses the model's results. The dataset is a balanced panel of 15 Estonian counties covering the period from 2000 to 2011. We consider a PCA–DEA model as an alternative method to estimate and predict QOL scores and rankings of Estonian counties. The method consists of a two-stage analysis that begins with a principal component analysis. In the second stage, the standard DEA is used. The results from the conventional DEA model and the PCA–DEA model are compared and discussed. A comparison of the methodologies demonstrates that a PCA–DEA model provides a powerful tool for performance ranking. The rankings of Estonian counties using QOL scores for different model specifications are presented. Finally, the QOL ranking of Estonian counties is revised using PCA–DEA.     

Differences in work–family conflict: which individual and national factors explain them?

This paper contributes to cross-cultural literature on work–family relationships by testing not only hypotheses about the impact of work and family demands and gender at individual level on work–family conflict (WFC), but also at country level. Concretely, several theories commonly used in the literature (role conflict, boundary management and social support theory) are used to analyzed how national culture dimensions affects WFC. Using information about employee residents in each of the countries interviewed in the Second European Quality of Life Survey and also GLOBE dimensions of national culture, the paper shows that the relationship between work and family demands and WFC is universal and equal phenomenon throughout Europe. In line with gender role theory, demanding and stressing work have stronger effects on women’s WFC than on men’s. While opposite to it, household hours also have stronger effect on women’s WFC than on men’s. Moreover, the paper shows that national culture affects how people perceive work–family relationships. In line with integration/segmentation hypotheses derived from boundary management theory, uncertainty avoidance decreases WFC. Moreover, in line with social support, human orientation decreases the level of WFC, especially for men. Eastern Europe and Mediterranean countries have higher levels of WFC, while Scandinavian countries are those that have lower levels of WFC.